


Oh, Sweet Symphony

by naiadies



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Ballet, Dancer!Peter, Flash Thompson Mention, No Dialogue, sorry??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 08:57:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8243687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naiadies/pseuds/naiadies
Summary: Ballet is poetic in how similar it is to fighting.





	

**Author's Note:**

> sorry about my bad stupid ending?? I'm sorry but I don't know how to do closure at the end of a story??

Ballet was something to fall back on when Peter was a grief-stricken kid. He was sad, yet outgoing, and Ben wanted him to join Karate. His attempts proved futile when Peter insisted to be in the fancy dancing class.  
So May and Ben made a joint decision based on what would make Peter happiest and enrolled him into the ballet class.  
It had been difficult, because he had to work hard and he was in a class full of girls, but Peter always came home comfortably aching with thoughts of new friends and maybe a future sleep-over racing through his head. He was practically excelling in his class.  
But then he turned 14 - just beginning to be able to stand on his toes - when he stopped. Peter begged his aunt and uncle to let him stop dancing, because he was beginning to realize that's not what boys like to do.  
It hadn't been the first time Aunt May cursed gender roles and social constructs for making her boy feel like he can't do something he enjoyed.  
(Like the time he painted his nails when he was 5 and that little boy, Flash, pushed him down and said he had cooties. Peter came home crying and pleading his Aunt May to scrub it off)  
Peter still practiced around the house, going on his toes when he and May we're baking pie, stretching his legs on the countertops while doing his homework, and doing other typical warm up exercises.  
And then Ben died.  
And Peter started to act weird and detached, distracted. He didn't tell Aunt May the full truth anymore. After a while, he began to act engaged again, having more conversations with her instead of one-word replies of a one-sided conversation.  
When all of the clothes in the washer turned pink and blue, she confronted him about it, thinking he would make up another silly excuse, like washing the American flag. She didn't get one, but he told her to sit down and she listened as her boy, her Peter told her that he was Spider-Man. Peter was going out, fighting crime, all because he had the power to do so.  
She's very proud.  
She straight up laughed out loud when she heard that Spider-Man was see incorporating ballet moves into his fighting style. And this one time, she was washing his suit of all the dirt and soot, and she found that he had some thin ballet shoes sewn into his suit. He never really gave up on dancing, just found another time for it.  
When a man in a suit came to see them one day, she knew this was the time that Peter had been found out. But when the man had unexpectedly told Peter that he was going to be put on the Avengers team, all of May’s stresses had drained out of her. Peter was going to be properly trained! He was going to be able to protect himself! It would all be okay.

Peter had always hated having to hurt people that he was friendly with. He hated the idea of having to hurt his friends so he could learn. So, he had learned ballet. And now he was relearning it in the middle of the Avengers training room, because ballet was about gentleness and being delicate, yet with such a deadly grace that it doesn't cause pain to others. So, he was in the training room at 6 in the morning on a Saturday, doing that curtsy pose and then going on his toes. Around 10, Clint, Natasha, and Steve all filed in to see Peter performing a whole dance by himself. And 10:15, Tony and Bruce were rushing into the room, Tony called by the others and Bruce alarmed by Tony’s hurrying. He never hurries, for anything.  
Peter was perfecting a delicate and graceful ballet dance as a warm up to beating each other senseless.  
When he was done, a loud round of applause thundered from the doorway, causing Peter to jump and blush, realizing he probably danced for them without meaning to. Peter grinned brightly, thanking them and bowing.  
They all complimented him, amazed at how graceful he was.  
To say training was interesting that day would be an understatement.

**Author's Note:**

> constructive criticism is always welcome!


End file.
